Key prosecution witness hoped Jimmy Lai’s assistant would help him escape Hong Kong, trial told

Paralegal Wayland Chan says that after his first arrest in October 2020 he believed he could still convince police he was not affiliated with Lai or his associates

Chan says he was hopeful Lai’s right-hand man Mark Simon would be able to ‘find some way’ to get him out of Hong Kong after police released him on bail

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A key prosecution witness in Jimmy Lai’s trial has revealed he harboured hope that the mogul’s assistant would help him escape Hong Kong. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 4:13pm, 3 May 2024Updated: 6:53pm, 3 May 2024

A key prosecution witness in Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s national security trial has said he harboured hopes that the tycoon’s assistant would help him escape from Hong Kong after his arrest by police four years ago.

Paralegal Wayland Chan Tsz-wah told West Kowloon Court on Friday he believed that after his first arrest in October 2020, he could still convince police that he was not affiliated with Lai or his associates.

Chan said he had thought that Lai’s right-hand man Mark Simon, who previously worked for US naval intelligence, would be able to “find some way” to get him out of Hong Kong after police released him on bail.

“I thought that luck was still on my side,” the defendant turned witness added.

He also denied fabricating his court testimony to suit prosecutors’ needs in exchange for a more lenient sentence on a count of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, to which he pleaded guilty in August 2021.

Chan earlier revealed he had linked up Lai to activists of the “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong” (SWHK) campaign group to facilitate the tycoon’s political agenda and trigger the nation’s “implosion” through lobbying for economic sanctions and other hostile acts abroad.